nitro good point. I dont really understand automated systems though.. 1. How do you connect your software to the markets ?, and how do you tell the program "when this happens, do, or not to do a certain action"? I have some programming experiance myself, so I guess you use a combination of conditional statements and loops.. do certain brokers have their own script/programming language? 2.do you program your own indicators/ charts/ ect..? -nate
Anything is possible, the question is can you do it, no one else's opinion is going to help you. Are you looking for someone to give you confidence that you can trade, if so, it won't work. It's hard work. I'm not a successful trader and I've been at this for nearing 10 months now, but I still am hanging in there trading because I love it, I'm not worried anymore if I will be successful or not, I just want to gain as much experience as I can while I'm still young and then go from there.
The answer is yes. But if you do not have the proper mindset then you will be pissing in the wind. The are 3 stages to trading. Losing break even profitable. It seems you have made it to stage 2 which is farther than most ever make it. If you are break even, then profitability is just right around the corner with some tweaking of your trading plan.
From personal experience, futures require more discipline. I am purely discretionary and recently started trading the eminis (since Oct last year). I've been trading stocks a long time and the first thing you'll notice is the speed difference. In comparison to many equities, the liquidity in futures is not manipulated, hence the moves are a lot more fun IMO, things happen very quickly (and can be potentially much more dangerous). I have noticed that my futures account has a higher volatility in terms of gain/loss. I think this is due to my being better able to define monetary risk when trading equities - per example I trade 1k shares of INTC and set a 12 cent stop all the time, that ratio hardly ever changes, this is true with all the stocks I daytrade. I haven't found that number in the futures markets yet, sometimes I need to have a 3 point stop, sometimes a 5 or a 1 point stop based on the markets mood and the time of day. Regardless, the pace is faster and patience is a much more important factor.
Yes Noob it is possible to make a very good living trading. Use the Search function and you will see 100's on threads already on the subject.
if u can trade equities successfully u should have not much of a problem with futs...a few bumps on the road but u should get there eventually....r/r not that good tho, I can't understand why u want to switch, there are so many opp on equities...u have to change your style and give up scalpin', go after big ranges: there's a way to capture them with consistency and it's in front of u every single day.
Steve, IMO: 1) Discretionary trading is the ultimate form of trading. 2) Futures trading are the hardest instrument to trade. Put those two together and you have the making of an account killer. However, any trader that is consistantly making a living trading anything discretionarily is a ripe candidate to expand into another venue, futs or otherwise. Thing is, there are so many places to go. For example, there are the usual suspects, ES NQ and YM. But what about ZN or ZB or Eurodollars? What about Nikkei futs or DAX? What about spreads on any of those? What about options on the SPX or NDX? What about going for some more lower hanging fruit like equity pairs or convertible arbitrage? What about overseas stocks? So many choices, so little time... I am not sure that a trader that has access to firm money should be jumping into futures [because he already has leverage], but if you do, the rewards can be astonishing because of the monster leverage and liquidity. I guess I didn't really answer your question, but I am not even sure I am qualified since I don't trade futs discretionarily at this time - only by machine. nitro
Thanks Nitro, its not a cut and dry question to answer anyways. I am just very interested in slowly expanding into other markets and just have heard that, to trade futures discretionarily, you need the utmost discipline and patience which are my two strongest qualities as a trader. Need to work on my aggressiveness and risk tolerance though .